Success Is...

Success is different to everyone. To me it is emails from readers asking for more books, to know what is going on with their favorite characters. It is an email from a reader yelling at me because they were up all night or all day reading because they couldn't put the book down.

Enjoy,

Simone.

The future

Of course, in five years, I will still be writing. I’d love to be able to take extended vacations with my family and friends. A hammock in the sun sounds great—of course I hate being hot so there’d better be a cool breeze, lol.

In five years, both my kids will be in college. I want to be anticipating the oldest son’s graduation. I will be getting ready to move into a new house. I just moved, but I think we’ll be thinking of moving again about that time.

I’ll like to have won a few awards for writing and sign for a few books with a mainstream publisher. I don’t anticipate leaving ebooks behind. Instead, I want to be a bridge author to lead more people to ebooks.

I’d also like to be on the front line of detecting and eliminating those people who create viruses and hack into computers. It’s a little thing really and something that would affect the world and not just me. Perhaps implants in the fingers that would send painful shocks into the system every time the offender goes within two feet of a computer. Hmm…yeah, that would be good. And if they get shocks from other electronics, well, so be it. Additionally, they should be sentence to work service. They should have to cook and clean for the victims since the victims have to spend hours and hours fixing their computers—they should definitely have to do this on Thanksgiving day. After all they’ve ruined plenty of people’s holidays with their crap.

Okay, I’m going a little off-topic. Let’s just say, Brynn is completely frustrated! Yesterday, the day I would be cooking a full Thanksgiving dinner, including three pies, and having people over, I discovered that though I have a supposedly good, well-known virus protection and a spyware eliminator, my computer was infected with a fanfreakingtastic Trojan. And it sucked up hours of my day while I was having to do other things. Thank you very much, damn computer hacker.

I am convinced there is a special place in hell for these people.

I sound a little bitter. Sorry. My computer is my baby—I use it for all my work. No one else touches it. I’m very careful about what I do with it, where I go on the internet and what I click. I’ve done everything possible to keep the baby safe.

But now, it’s time to renew my antivirus software. Suggestions?

Looking Ahead

To be honest, I try not to look ahead too much - mostly because I don't want to be so focused on the future that I miss what's going on in the here and now. Because frankly, the here and now is pretty damn good.

But let's see...in five years...

I want to continue spending time with my awesome friends and family.

I want to be able to say that I took my dream vacation...and have it be true.

I want to be able to afford to put my kids through college.

I want to have at least two YA novels out - and hell, let's add NYT Bestseller while I'm at it!

I want to continue writing e-books.

I want to have enough time to pursue my hobbies.

But honestly, I'm happy with my life. I have a good one. If this stuff happens? Awesome. If not, I'll still be happy. Life is good. Really, really good.

I hope you're all enjoying yourselves - today and always! Happy Thanksgiving!

Bring it

Here would be good. With a fruity cocktail and a couple extra trees and hammocks for Brynn, Bron, Mia and Simone. All the girls hanging out and getting drunk in the sun. All paid for by the millions of dollars our best selling novels have netted us in the previous five years.

Somehow I don't think that is what I am supposed to be talking about though. However, it's good to have a dream and a goal. As far as goals go I would say getting the five of us to Bora Bora is a damn good one, wouldn't you agree ladies?

But let’s talk about the ‘realistic’ (read BORING) plan for where I want to be in five years.

I would like to be supporting my family with my writing alone so I will not be required to work a day job.

I would like to be published with a large New York publisher while still having connections with my EPublishing roots. I just really want to see my name on the NY Times bestseller list someday.

I would like to have a few non-erotic works published.

I would like to break into freelance magazine writing.

I would like to own a house on actual property with a large porch or even, dare I say it, a veranda. Where the ladies can come and sip tea while we talk about our trip to Bora Bora. (See how I snuck that in again?)

There are a few places that I know I will be in five years:

At my daughter’s graduation. (Holy crap, five years really isn’t that far away. Oy vey.)

At my son’s first day of school. (Yup, 12 years apart. What a sucker.)

Celebrating my six year anniversary with the best husband in the whole world.

A size two. (Ok, so I’m a wicked liar. Honestly I don’t think my bone structure would ALLOW my body to be that size. But I would totally take a size six again. Ah, the good old days.)

Writing full time. Even if it is a second job to compliment my day job I will be at a point where I am always working on a book. It’s not just a goal. I will do it, and it will be fabulous.


Sometimes five years seems like such a long time. But when I look at the last five years and see how quickly they’ve flown I realize how much work I have to do, and fast, to accomplish the things I want to happen by 2015.

How about you? What is your five year plan? Will you be with us in Bora Bora?
And have a fabulous Thanksgiving. Make sure you remember to give thanks for all of the blessings in your life. No matter how crappy things are, there is always something to be thankful for.

I am thankful for my family and my wonderful friends who are all so supportive of me and always there when I need them. I love you all.

XoXoXo
Dakota

In Five Years, I Will Be...

Someplace warm. Someplace tropical with a couple of hot cabana boys to fulfill my every whim....

Not that kind of goal - damn - well, hopefully someplace where there are hot guys to ogle.

I really hate this question in job interviews...I want to be working, with more money and responsibility. Truthfully though, I want to be making a living with my writing and working and volunteering part time. I've spent too much time the past few years trying to balance school, work, and writing, that to not be interacting with people on a regular basis is somewhat stagnating.

But writing for a living can be kind of generic. More specifically, I want to be writing closer to 12 books a year, and I want to know that the characters I'm writing about are still special, that my writing hasn't become formulaic. I want to participate in conferences and reader/author get-togethers.

And I want to find that balance Bronwyn alluded to.

Unfortunately, I will also be worrying about Bug driving and figuring out the best and most memorable ways to scare her dates into behaving.

Enjoy,

Simone.

P.S. - For those who are celebrating US Thanksgiving - Happy Thanksgiving and travel safe.

I Don't Have Anywhere to Write

Some people might think this is a stupid excuse, but it's one lots of writers embrace. I do. I use it a lot. Lately, I've used it extensively. We moved recently, and it wasn't until recently that I finally found a space to write.

I don't have my own office. Neither of the couches are comfortable (new ones coming soon! Yay!!!!). Someone's always got a TV on. My back hurts if I sit against the bed's headboard and write for too long. It's too dark. It's too hot. It's too distracting. Yada yada yada.

Okay, some of those excuses are valid. Some are just lame...excuses. In truth, it's possible to write anywhere. Heck, I wrote my first published manuscript in a notebook while sitting in the front seat of a car during the winter. I know writers who write in bookstores, coffee shops, restaurants and bars. I know writers who compose on the sly because family members or coworkers don't approve of what they do. Writers have been known to write while on the treadmill, at the laundromat, on the bus/subway, on a porch...

I think this excuse stems from lack of motivation or fear. Having nowhere to write is probably one of the easiest excuses to latch onto. So how do you combat it?

First, make a list of all the places you can work. Can you leave your house to write? Where are all the places in your house to work? Sometimes, this can be the most difficult thing, because you have a million excuses for why a place won't work. Trust me, been there.

Second, identify the real problem. Is it lack of motivation or fear? Is it both? For me, I have plenty of motivation. It's fear. You might say, "Fear? For real?" Yeah. I'm a fairly successful writer, so it might seem outlandish, but truthfully, I struggle with fear all the time. What if the next book tanks? I write in series...what if I totally screw up? What if people think I'm a one-plot hack? Trite? Boring? Uninspired? Yep. I'm one big old bundle of fears.

Sometimes, it's easier to make excuses than to work past insecurities. But...if you want to be successful, if you want to sell your work and be deemed trustworthy by your publishers, you have to. You have to squash the excuses and just get to it.

Once you do that, go back to your list, pick a place and get to work.

Excuses, Excuses

I too have a million excuses for not writing. But I'm not going to go into the laundry list or we'll be here all day. But I do have an observation to make...of the five regular bloggers who contribute to this blog, we all love writing, yet we all have tons of excuses for not doing it.

Granted, lots of them are valid - we have to run kids back and forth to school, change diapers, move households, work the day job, make supper, do laundry - these are all necessary things that suck time away from from writing and all of the other things we want to do. Most days, we're not involved in the time-suck 24/7, however we're still not spending the available time (be it 15 minutes or four hours) writing.

Why is that? Is it that we're inherently lazy? I don't think so. Combined, we have a total (if my math isn't wrong...again) 64 books in the last three years with more releases on the way. Nope. I don't think it's laziness.

Are we too busy? I think I can speak for all five of us when I say, yeah, we're busy as hell, but that clearly hasn't stopped us in the past. I think those 64+ books are a pretty good indication of that.

So what is it?

Honestly? I think it's about balance. No, I'm not trying to be all zen or new agey, but I think a lot of us lack balance in our lives. I know I sure do. A typical day for me (outside the regular school run) is throw myself at whichever problem looks to be the one to spiral out of control first. It could be a school project of doom, edits I'm doing one of my authors or a friend or family member that needs help. Typically, I throw all of my energy into whatever the problem du jour is until I have very little left for the other things in my life like writing...until, of course, my next deadline becomes the problem du jour. Somehow, I'm guessing I'm not the only one who responds to life this way.

I don't have any answers besides taking up Dakota and Simone's battle cry of sitting my ass in the chair and writing. I don't think balance comes naturally - at least not to me. So until it becomes second nature, I need to figure out how to create balance in my life so writing happens every day - even if it's only for 15 minutes at a time. The world won't stop spinning if I take the time to do one of the things I love most. And it won't stop spinning for everyone else who wants to make time for themselves. I think balancing the want tos with the need tos will likely make everyone happier and ultimately more productive.

I'm like freakin' Nike over here

Ooh, I am the master of this! Excuses that is.

As someone who writes very quickly, when I actually bother to keep my ass in a chair and work on something, I am quite fond of “I’ll start tomorrow.”

Well guess what? Today is tomorrow. Everyday. And before you know it, today is yesterday and you haven’t written a freakin’ word. Then what are you going to do?

I’ll tell you what you’re going to do. You’re going to have six months (or more) between book releases. And if the book you finally write isn’t stellar then you are going to get comments like “I waited six months for this piece of crap? Thanks but no thanks Dakota.” And your sales dwindle.

As I mentioned above I write quickly. My new book Clandestine was written in two days. And I do consider it to be one of my best works, so I am not afraid of backlash. But what if I don’t have another book come out until next year? Late next year? And it is not something I am proud of but I send it anyway because of the pressure of going too long between releases? Then I am royally screwed and so are the people who paid for my book and my reputation.

There is a saying, ‘Excuses are like assholes, everyone’s got one.’ Okay, so maybe the expression is about opinions. But still. There is not a person on Earth that hasn’t thrown an excuse around now and then. So I stand by my statement.

My favorite advice about writing is to just do it. Sit your ass in a chair, plant your fingers on the keyboard and type. It’s not going to write itself, no matter how long you stare at a blank screen.

Another of my favorite excuses is “I’m thinking out the plot.”


I call massive bullshit. Yes, on myself, I call bullshit. While it is true that I can ruminate on a story for months, if I would just sit and type the thoughts in my head it would turn into a book. Visualizing the characters acting out every scene is fine, but after you watch the scene in your head you need to get it down on paper or it will be gone forever because your brain will move on and the details you painstakingly thought out will be mushy when (if) you ever sit down to write it out.

So now that my little secret is out I am allowing all my friends to call bullshit on me if my answer to “Are you working on anything new?” is “I’m mentally fleshing out a story.” No I’m not. I’m playing Boggle Bash on Pogo.com. Or I’m on the floor telling Jr. Rebel v 2.0 “Hey Woodchucks stop chucking my wood” so I can watch him laugh. I am NOT working on anything related to writing.

(Oy I shouldn’t have shared that. The fallout from that one is going to be MASSIVE.)

Wow, check out this post! It’s all long and I stayed on topic and everything! And I could go on some more. There are all kinds of fantastic excuses I haven’t even touched on yet.

1. My characters are not cooperating. (They are YOU. Therefore YOU are not cooperating.)

2. I have to do: laundry/dishes/vacuum/etc. The housework doesn’t pay you. Fans don’t send you emails asking when you are going to get the folded socks put away. Editors don’t care if there is an inch of dust on your DVD shelf. Writing is a job and you have to treat it that way. You wouldn’t call off of a day job because you just can’t stand the clutter on your countertops anymore. Trust me, when you are in a writing groove you don’t even know you HAVE countertops. The housework will keep. Or your husband/kids/friends can help. They love it. (Okay they don’t but who asked them? You don’t love it either and it’s not fair that they expect you to do it all.)

3. I’m taking a break between books to clear my head. Um, you’re what? Why the hell do you want your head clear? A clear head is an empty head. You need to have lots of stuff in there so you have something to write about. Clutter that bitch up and get your fingers on the keyboard! Sheesh.

See, there are all sorts of excuses one can make to avoid writing. But guess what, excuses are not worth a damn. They are all crap and that’s why they are called excuses. They are not “Reasons” you haven’t written, they are “Excuses” for not writing.

So, as always, sit your ass down and write damnit.

XoXoXo
Dakota

Dubunked

1. Falling out of bed from at least five feet in the air.

2. Discovering that something isn't paranormally motivated, but a result of human intervention.

3. Removal of hair extensions from the crown of your head... oh, wait. That's deBUMPing. Nevermind.

Okay, I confess, I have no idea what to do with this subject. How do you debunk an excuse? I mean, excuses by their very nature are flimsy reasons to not do something. So flimsy, in fact, that they don't convince anyone at all. Like how likely are you to believe me when I say, I can't write my book, I have to buff my toenails? Or, I can't do my edits because my freckles are reflecting the sun and making me all squinty?

Debunking an excuse. Yeah, I got nuthin'.

Excuse...er... Reason #547 That I'm Not Writing

I didn't write today...this week...this month...this year... because - fill in the blank.....

We all have them, reasons and excuses why we didn't write when we should be or were supposed to be. Missing deadlines - either those set for us or the ones we set ourselves. My personal favorites are:

I don't have time

and

My life is too stressful right now

Both are at the same time valid and still an excuse and bear closer attention. Time - it's fleeting and limited. There 24 hours in a day and most of the time 36 is needed. Between family obligations, jobs, school if applicable, and wanting to have a life - there is rarely enough time to spare. But if there is fifteen minutes waiting in construction zones (gotta love Michigan in the summer), at doctor's offices, picking kids up from school, work breaks, lunch there is time. It means that you need a pen or three and a notebook - one notebook with lined paper (unlined for those who detest lines and the implied restrictions) - I prefer colorful, spiral bound 5x7 notebooks or the journals with great covers (my favorite is the green one that Bug got me for my birthday). I keep them in my backpack (being a student has advantages) but I also make sure that the purse or bag I'm carrying is big enough to fit it in. I have been known to flag sections for certain WIP or developing ideas. But not always.
At one point, notes and conversation snippets were written on sticky pads, numbered so I wouldn't mess up the order and then later taped into the green notebook. Those notes and conversation later were cleaned up and became part of the conversation between Ethan and Greg Hudson (Dean's father) in Knight of Pleasure.

Time is available, its making writing a priority.

There can be guilt associated with taking time for yourself, to do something just for you, which can have family and others rolling their eyes and telling you that you should be doing something more productive for them or your family. How important is writing? What do you want from it? For it? Do you want to be published, or to just write for enjoyment? It doesn't matter when it comes to your writing time. Fifteen minutes - a half hour - an hour - set a timer if needed. Call it a time out - shut yourself away for a set time and write. Make a commitment to yourself to write. Even if you can't schedule any writing time, make a word count goal to reach everyday. Have a supportive writing friend hold you accountable. We can never add hours to our day, but we can snatch enough minutes to add up to whole hours. Be creative. Your a writer, it can be done.

Stress on the other hand is not as easy to deal with. Mostly, because stress is completely emotional with some very real physical reactions and it manifests itself differently in everyone. And it can arrive in different forms with different events - now if that doesn't suck big time. Some things to identify are what are your stressors. For some it's relationships. For others its the every day job. For others its money. My stressors can be and have been all three and then some. My family sees writing as one of 'those' jobs and is considered inappropriate for anybody. It doesn't honestly matter the subject and genre. But I learned to ignore them as much as possible and surround myself with people who are supportive. At one point - very recently - I had one of those jobs that while you get paid for 40 hours a week you actually work 80. School is another thing that can add stress because of homework and papers and presentations.

When you allow yourself to be consumed with stress and worry - even if the problems and concerns are very real - making sure you can pay rent is a huge deal - I know that - you can't write. No matter how much you may kind of want to. The importance stress and worry play in our lives is up to us. We can let it consume us, take us over, or we can acknowledge it, make a plan to fix what we can that is stressing us out, and make that energy work for us.

That is the hard part. Getting to the point where we can work with it even if we can't see a way out. I'm working on that part now.

While talking with a friend of mine I acknowledged that I had allowed stress to dictate my actions. Or more truthfully, lack of actions. Between work- when I was working - and worrying about money and everything that you need money for - food, shelter, heat, etc -after I lost my job - I had allowed stress to dictate to me what was important and what wasn't. Writing to ME is a necessity of life, much like breathing. But I had allowed stress to cut off my air supply. I wasn't writing. I wanted to, but I couldn't quite make myself do it. Fear had joined stressed. What if what I wrote was crap? What if they didn't like it? What if. What if. What if. What if the world ends tomorrow? Fear can be crippling. You can't please everyone. Don't try. Someone is always going to not like what I wrote. Someone else will love it.

Life and stress happen, but it doesn't have to run your life or my life. So, I'm acknowledging it, working on a plan to fix what I can (Somethings can't be fixed, they must be healed. When my dad died, I needed to heal before I could write and be creative again.) and then use my kitchen timer and my accountability partner to write. A friend of mine can write out her stress and worry - I used to be able to, but now I prefer talking it out. I have a couple of friends that I have to learned to lean on and will listen to me rant, rave, and whine, and then hug me, cook with me, and then nod and smile when I say something prophetic like 'time to put my big girl panties on and deal with it'. They also allow themselves to be dragged to a tiny Irish Pub in the middle of nowhere to celebrate - good thing they like Irish music and Guinness. In turn, they lean on me, and drag me to out of the way restaurants with great food and music and have me try whatever homemade brew they've come up with. Stresses change and so does how we deal with them, but we need to spend time with ourselves, and remind us that only we are allowed to dictate what is a necessity and allowable.

Because I allowed - allowed - Eleanor Roosevelt said "No one can make you feel inferior without your consent. " - which made me realize that if I can allow people to make feel inferior, I can allow stress to dictate to me. The best thing I can do in the situation is regain control and prove that I can do whatever it is I was told I can't or shouldn't do.

Time, Stress, Fear, and Life all happen - but the important questions are:

Is your writing worth it?
Are you worth it?

Yes. Now, write.

Enjoy.

Simone.

Bad Blogger, Thy Name is Bron

So yeah...I'm really late with this post. Let me just say, it's been a hell of a couple of weeks filled with the good the bad and the ugly.

I've decided not to obsess about the bad or the ugly - these things are transitory and while my feelings are hurt, they're not worth my rage, they're not w.orth losing sleep over, and apparently some of the things I'm bummed over losing never actually existed in the first place. I know that sounds super vague and cryptic, but I don't want to air my (or anyone else's ) dirty laundry in a public forum. I'm doing my best to take a deep breath and let it all go.

So I'm focusing on the positive - the good, if you will. I've always known that I have amazing friends. I'm cognizant of that fact - whether I talk to them every day or not - I know that I'm surrounded by an amazing circle of love, support and wisdom. This circle stretches from down the street, across the ocean to the the UK and back to the West Coast of Canada with a special shout out to Minnesota and practically everywhere in between. Writers, bloggers, non-writers/bloggers - I've got the best ones

So I want to say to my friends - thank you for your amazing awesomeness. It's a lot easier to deal with the crap when I've got friends like you. I love you all.

uh-oh

Free for alls scare me. I like to have a clear topic on which to post. When left to my own devices I tend to not write posts. (Like on my very own blog.)

So let's see, what has been going on in Dakota's life?

A couple of months ago a wrote a book in two days. Yes, that is 2 days. Clandestine is the 3rd and final book in my Lost and Found series with Resplendence. It comes out November 24th and I think it is my favorite of the series. In fact, it might be one of my favorites of any of the books I've written. I like the characters and I like their story.

Hopefully I will have an approved cover to share soon. I've seen the draft and it's pretty.

What else. Jr. Rebel V 2.0 is doing fabulously. His 3 month birthday is the 13th. I can't believe how much he has changed in such a short period of time. He really is the cutest boy I've ever seen. And he is so smart already, and so strong.

Jr. Rebel is doing well. She is still getting straight As in school and still loves going. I'm so glad. I think that 7th grad was when I started getting sick of school so I'm happy she is enjoying her time there. But then, she is a totally different kid than I was.

See what happens when I don't have a topic? I ramble incessantly.

If you want to kill some time try going here. It's a good time and you can spend hours laughing at other people's expense. Especially now that they have added a santa page. Oh boy is that a good time!

Happy hump day!
Dakota

Writers and NaNoWriMo

There was no topic listed this week when I sat down to write this post and I don't have vast quantities of photos to show, and since it's NaNo time, I want to share somethings I've learned...more advice for writers so to speak...

A dear friend of mine and I were discussing NaNo and how we each were doing. One of my brothers asked what NaNoWriMo was and commented that the acronym was almost as long and ridiculous as something the Military would come up with. Which is most likely true, however, I went on to explain that NaNoWriMo - NaNo for short - stands for National Novel Writing Month where participants try to write 50000 words in 30 days, which breaks down to 1667 NEW words every day. The idea behind NaNo is to write as much as you can, as fast you can while you've got your internal editor sent off to vacation or on some wild goose chase that could possibly provide some other benefit to you. If your internal editor is busy with something else they won't nag you about every word, punctuation point, or fill-in-the-blank-line because you don't know the name for a person, place or thing. Or one-line paragraphs that read - insert swordfight/sex scene/office description here. At this point his eyes rolled back in his head and he muttered something to effect of 'ya'll are strange', to which I reminded him that his bookshelves were filled with the work from us strange people. Point taken.

NaNo can be as much of a competition as an accountability measure. For college students who are in the last 4 -6 weeks of the semester where it feels like the profs all of sudden remembered how much they still had to cover and assigned multiple papers and mass quantities of reading and homework - 50K words can be tricky. Between work, school, and homework writing might not even get time for days at a time. Trust me - I know - and it's okay.

My friend and I were talking on the 5th, she'd already written over 26000 words. Which is great. She was hesitant to tell me at first, but I assured her I really wanted to know how she was doing. I was happy for her and floored by her progress. She is the stay-at-home-mom of two boys who are in school 5 days a week and practices martial arts two evenings a week. I on the other hand spend a good portion of my day looking for a day job, studying, and playing on facebook - great for relaxing or procrastination - bad for everything else. She also writes faster than I do. She'll write 1500- 2000 words in the same hour I get about 1000.

Her goal for NaNo is 110000 words and I'm sure she'll make it. My goal is more words than I did last year. See, I have yet to hit 50000 words during NaNo because I've been doing the work and school thing. Seriously cuts into my writing time. I use a kitchen timer, 30 minute increments, even though I have gone beyond that, because it allows me to keep on task easier. After 30 minutes I can play on facebook or walk around or do what I need too, but I find that once I start writing, I don't usually want to get on facebook because I want to know what is going to happen next. I write primarily by the seat of my pants - I rarely know what is coming next.

I also have two different books that I'm working on that I hope to complete this month - both m/m one is the 2nd Smugglers' Cove book and the other is a paranormal. Both involve research, which means there are things like insert name of stout here or goddess name here or magical herbal thingy. Enough description so that I know what needs to be there.

When you set out to participate in NaNo, push yourself definitely, but don't compare yourself. For me, if I were to compare myself to my friend who wrote 26000 words in 5 days or even to some of the ladies here at Evo, I would find myself overwhelmed and trying to achieve something that I'm not at yet, may never be at and would very well drive myself into writers' block or stop writing, because why bother, I'm never going to write like so-and-so. No, I'm not going to write like so-and-so, neither can anybody else. You can only write like you. And whether its 186 words in eight hours scribbled in the margin of your notebook next to some obscene chemistry equation or 26000 words in five days - do your best, and like I tell my daughter who swims - beat your last count.

Kick the internal editor out. Write. Enjoy.

Simone.

Lookalikes

Like some of the others this week, I'll admit that I don't usually have a particular person in mind when I write a book. But here are some pics where I did have a particular figure in mind:

Tribute for the Goddess

Jett was modeled after Heather Graham, in particular a picture of her in an ad from one of my magazines. Thad was taken from a male model I found online and Heath Ledger. Below are some of the character pages I made.

Tra-la-la-la-la-la - It's Picture Day

I'm especially fond of picture day blogs - particularly today. My brain is all melty, so knowing that I can just post pretty pictures and all will be well makes Bron a happy kid. So, let's meet some characters.


Gideon Wells from Cuffed and Dangerous

Gwendolyn Locke from Just Right
Ian O'Meara from Immortal Curse
Wrenn Saunders from Cuffed and Dangerous
Michael Tanner from Handcuffs and Lies
Emma Boulton from Immortal Curse
Jude Caulfield from Cuffed and Dangerous

Who's who in Dakota's books

Often I will visualize certain celebrities while I am writing a book. Usually they won't be exact look alikes, but their appearances are similar to what I am picturing in my head. The following are a few celebrities that inspired my characters from Mitch.

Mitch

Jarrod

Reagan

Skip

Who's Who

Generally speaking, I don't model my characters after real people. Therefore they don't look like people I've seen before. There are, however, a few exceptions. Sometimes a character introduces themselves so strongly, that I can't help but make the comparison. It almost always happens AFTER I've begun the story and they are in my head. Usually, I'm asking the art department for a cover and in cruising the stock photos, I find what I want, right there.

Maybe I should go character-shopping beforehand, but I think it would stymie the process.

Here are a few:

Rook, from Dangerous Distraction (he's a cross between these two guys. Mostly the first one, because the second guy is too slick. BUT if you take Jeffrey Dean, guy one, and gave him a leaner build with guy two's hair, that's kind of what you'd have.)

Vin, from She's Got Balls (there was another pic that showed Vin even better, but I can't find it. He's a famous wrestler, I'm told, and HUGE in soooo many ways. *eyebrow wiggle*)

Oz, from Open Sesame (THIS IS EXACTLY OZ)

Melinda, from Melting Melinda (every time I picked up this work to write, her face came to mind. This is and the next one are the only times a face happened first.)

Father Garth, from the as yet unpublished Faking Perfection (Now, I tried REALLY hard not to think about Jeff Probst as Father Garth. I mean, really conscience? REALLY? Jeff Probst is a gay priest taking it in the church office???? Whatev.)
This was fun. Hope you thought so too!

Look-A-Likes or Changlings

The first thing that came to mind when I read today's topic was that show that ran on TVGuide on cable while I was trying to find someone to watch - you know the one where a group of people take a real non-celebrity type person that looks a lot like a celebrity and transform them to look a lot like that celebrity. It's an interesting process. The next thing that comes to mind are changlings - okay and chameleons - they end up looking like someone or something else.

Now am I supposed to decide who my characters physically look like - or something else. I'm going to choose something else because I'm a visual person so most if not all of my characters are either physically (loosely) based on a celebrity of some sort or a model. Now, psychologically and emotionally - they are a conglomeration of people I know in real life mixed with whatever pours from my imagination.

Enjoy,

Simone